Things are looking up for Canadian Apple users. Not only did the Great White North finally get official confirmation from Rogers that the company will soon carry the iPhone, but Apple Canada is offering a $45 credit to owners of older iPods who’ve run into battery problems. Anyone with a first, second or third generation iPod purchased before June 24, 2004 is eligible for the rebate, thanks to two different lawsuits filed in Montreal and Toronto claiming Apple had misrepresented the iPod’s battery life. But what will Canadians do with this newfound wealth? Apple hopes they’ll put it towards a new iPod, but here’s a few alternatives for making the most of this unexpected windfall.

Get the highest possible dynamic range out of your image. Ever wonder why even the best photographs can’t compare to the real thing? The human eye has the remarkable ability to adjust light sensitivity on the fly. Cameras, however, can only record a scene using a single exposure. In a scene with high contrast (that is, lots of dark and bright areas), both highlight and shadow details are going to get lost. So suppose you could take several pictures at varying exposures and blend the exposures together? That could make for a very impressive image.

iPhone users should have more than Steve Jobs' keynote address on June 9 to speculate about. It may be too soon to tell, but it looks as if wireless technology may be gearing for a standards war akin to the throw-down between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. There's an urgent need for fast, widespread Internet access -- gods know we need our YouTube videos as fast as we can get them. Currently, the iPhone has a data transfer speed of a mere 60 KB/s to 170 KB/s on its EDGE network and a slightly more respectable 150 KB/s to 6000 KB/s through Wi-Fi. The fourth generation (4G) of wireless tech is expected to serve up data at a scorching 100 Mbit/s to 1 Gbit/s.